The present invention relates to the technical goal of facilitating the use of email (electronic mail) and similar broadcast or targeted transmission mechanisms by automatically deleting information copies after their receipt.
Email is a very useful tool for promoting communication between people who are separated by distance, by different working hours, or both. However, email is sometimes inconvenient for recipients. This hinders the use of email as a mechanism for broadcasting information to many people and/or transmitting information to one or a few specific targets.
Email creates annoyances which have not been fully addressed. One common source of annoyance is xe2x80x9cspam xe2x80x9d email, namely, unsolicited email sent to multiple recipients. Unlike passive advertising, such as pop-up and banner ads on websites, and ads in more traditional print, radio, or television media, xe2x80x9cspam xe2x80x9d email seeks out its audience, and thrusts itself into the viewer""s field of attention without being invited. This can be very annoying because it interrupts other activities, consumes system resources, and perhaps most importantly, requires active efforts by recipients who want to dispose of these unwanted messages. An email recipient may delete unwanted messages manually by using an email Delete command in an email client (e.g., a desktop application program, or web mail pages in a web browser), by dragging the messages in question to a trash can, or by similar steps.
Some email systems provide filters that detect at least some incoming unsolicited email and either deletes it or, more typically, places it in a directory or folder reserved for such messages. But filters sometimes err, either by characterizing as unsolicited email a message that is not, or by failing to detect unsolicited email and letting it through with the normal correspondence from familiar senders. Thus, it would be helpful to provide some alternate or additional means for disposing of unsolicited email.
Some unsolicited email includes a statement that sending a reply with xe2x80x9cREMOVE xe2x80x9d in the subject field will remove the recipient from the mailing list. It has been alleged, however, that any reply to some such unsolicited email will simply confirm that the address to which the unsolicited mail was sent is xe2x80x9cgood xe2x80x9d (meaning someone actually looked at the unsolicited email) and that a reply asking to be removed from the mailing list may therefore have an effect opposite from the intended effect. If this is so, then only addresses from which no reply is received would have a chance of being removed from the list.
Moreover, even some mail which is unsolicited is of interest to the recipient only for a limited time. For instance, the fact that a recipient has voluntarily subscribed to an electronic newsletter, a news service, or a listserv list does not necessarily mean that the recipient wants to keep every message from that subscription after reading it. Indeed, despite having subscribed to the service, the recipient may not even want to read each and every message from the subscription service.
Television and radio xe2x80x9cspots xe2x80x9d which broadcast an advertisement without taking up storage space on the receiver (televisions and radios generally lack permanent storage such as hard disks) are known, although this characterization of them as not requiring recipient storage resources and proactive deletion by the recipient may be new.
Accordingly, it would be an advancement to provide an improved approach to email and similar messaging which moves the email message disposal burden off the shoulders of the recipient. In particular and without limitation, it would be an advance to make public notices and news sent through email less onerous to recipients, and likewise to make email advertisements (including without limitation coupons, contact information, descriptions of goods and/or services, comparisons, and promotional materials) available to multiple recipients without requiring that recipients affirmatively remove unwanted advertisements from their computer systems or create a reply message having REMOVE or another keyword in the subject, to indicate their lack of interest in the subject matter being advertised.
Such approaches for improved email messaging are disclosed and claimed herein.
The present invention relates to methods, articles, signals, and systems for self-removing email messages. Self-removal of email (or other transmitted digital information presentations) can provide at least two advantages. First, self-removing email can be used to enhance the security of a system by reducing the number of message copies and the life span of those copies. Second, self-removing email can be used to reduce the inconvenience of unsolicited email by making it possible for officials, advertisers, and other broadcast email originators to present messages that do not have to be manually removed by the target audience. A given method, article, signal, or system may use self-removing email to enhance message security, to reduce recipient annoyance, or both.
In some embodiments, self-removing email messages are encrypted with conventional tools and techniques. To further enhance security, a message is closely coupled to executable code which reduces the number of copies of the message. Some versions of the code allow any given copy of the message to be viewed at most once.
In some embodiments, self-removing email messages contain advertisements, but the invention may also be used to broadcast or otherwise transmit self-removing email messages which contain other materials that, at least by default, are not stored long-term on the recipient""s hard disk or on other intervening nodes (the self-removal action may sometimes be expressly overridden). For instance, news items, confidential materials, and other materials directed to a limited audience such as public notices (changes in the law, election results, tax auction notices, public hearing announcements, and so on), private club notices, and materials intended for mature audiences, may also be transmitted in self-removing email messages.
Unlike traditional email, self-removing email places the burden of selecting messages for removal and then removing them on the software and on the message originator, instead of on the message recipient. xe2x80x9cSpam xe2x80x9d advertising methods become much less onerous to recipients if the email carrying the advertisements is as effortlessly ephemeral (from the recipient""s point of view) as a television or radio commercial. Other aspects and advantages of the present invention will become more fully apparent through the following description.